Buzz With YouTube

Earlier this month, in an interview with CNBC, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “We believe the best [YouTube] products are coming out this year. And they’re new products…much more participative, much more creative…much more interesting in and of themselves.”

As part of their continued efforts to experiment with new ways to provide value to YouTube advertisers, Google have announced buzz targeting. The press release reads:

“One of the greatest aspects of YouTube is how it has democratized the way in which videos are discovered and promoted,” said Shiva Rajaraman, YouTube Product Manager. “On any given day, a video from a top-tier content creator or an ordinary YouTube user can become the next big thing.”

YouTube’s product and engineering team tapped into this core ethos by creating an algorithm that determines which YouTube partner videos are quickly becoming popular on the site and about to go viral. The algorithm looks at several factors, such as acceleration of views, favorites, and ratings activity, and then allows advertisers to target their ads specifically to these videos on YouTube.

“Every advertiser hopes that their campaign will to be the next big viral hit online, and they come to YouTube to reach the millions of video viewers who are on the site everyday,” said Rajaraman. “Buzz targeting lets them do both at the same time. They associate their brand with the hottest content of the day, while reaching the most engaged users in our community.”

Lionsgate was the first advertiser to partner with YouTube in the pilot of this product, by using buzz targeting to promote the release of the film “The Forbidden Kingdom.”

“With so many videos going viral on YouTube at any given time, buzz targeting allowed us to reach a very large, diverse audience,” said Danielle DePalma, Director of Digital Media, Lionsgate. “By running ads against some of the most prominent content on the site, we were able to place our brand at the center of the experience that millions of people have on YouTube every day.”

Ads for “The Forbidden Kingdom” ran against more than 500 of the most popular partner videos in music and entertainment, including content from major music labels and videos from users in the YouTube Partner Program.

“Buzz Targeting was an amazing opportunity for us to capitalize on the most popular videos on the site,” said DePalma.